Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.